Instant Reblog — PTSD & ED/SH

FLASH REBLOG

FAQ  1. Do I have an eating disorder?   2. What Kind of eating disorder do you have?   3. I need help. Where do I start?

You need help? Here is a list of great places…

Why I don’t have a “Submit” option

Self-Harm - Why Do We Do It? (by Kati Morton)

I know that many of us have worried about people finding out about our eating disorders or have had certain people judge us because we have or have had one. How do we deal with it? How do we make sure that people are not judging us and assuming other things because of our ED? We talk about it! We share the information! We tell them how it is for us and what we know about EDs! There are 8 million people who suffer from eating disorders!! We are not alone! I know that what I am asking you to do can be very scary, but as a group we have the ability to break the stigma. I am only one voice, but together we can reach so many. Wouldn’t it be nice to one day feel that we could speak to others about our struggles and concerns whether it is an ED or just life in general? If we could be honest with those around us about it and enlist them in our support team. I know that what I am asking you to do goes against everything that your ED tells you, but we all know that the longer we keep something a secret, the more power it has over us. So I challenge each of you to just do one thing. Share this video on your Facebook page, like it, tweet about it, pin it. There are a million ways to share things now, let’s take advantage of it. I promise to continue to put out new and relevant information, as we all work together towards a healthy mind and a healthy body.

Need Energy?? Try Breath of Fire! - Breathing Exercise #2 (by KatiMorton)

This video is another breathing technique. I know that usually I give you relaxing ones, but I realized that many of us actually need energy during our day and so I thought this one could be helpful too! This technique is one that is used in yoga a lot and is called the breath of fire. I know it sounds really intense, but I promise it is not too hard:)

The reason that this works to invigorate our bodies is because we are pushing out all of our stale air and bringing in fresh oxygen. This can help our bodies push our any old and less oxygenated blood that could have accumulated and replacing it with oxygen rich blood. Now this technique is not something that cannot be done when others are around because it is a bit noisy, but it does only take 15 seconds. So let’s step away for a bit and give it a try!!

Dealing with DUAL-DIAGNOSIS (by KatiMorton)

Building a Better Body Image! (by KatiMorton)

 I created this video to continue to address the topic of body image. I know that we all struggle with body image issues and constantly put ourselves down. Our ED’s yell negative stuff at us all day and anytime someone says something nice, it automatically negates it by telling you why it is a lie. So how do we get it to shut up?!?!?! Well, I will give you two tips to start working on in order to begin building back a more positive body image. 

The first tip is something that I have already told many of you to do. That is the post it note tip. The reason that I am in love with post it notes is because they can be stuck anywhere and leave no sticky residue behind. So go get some and let’s get started! Start by writing down 5-10 things that you like about yourself. Now I know you cannot think of any right now, but try to think of things that are not body related. We focus enough on our body, let’s focus on who we really are inside. Maybe you are great at drawing, maybe you play guitar, maybe you are always on time to appointments and get togethers. Maybe you are really good at painting nails (if this is true I will meet you somewhere so you can show me how, because I am terrible;) ) Whatever it is, write it down. No judgements over this. We are just trying to change the way our mind thinks about us. It won’t happen over night, but we do have to start little by little. 

Many research studies say that in order to have a happy relationship with someone the ratio of good to bad things said and done should be 5:1. So for every one bad thing said or done to the other, we have to do 5 good things. We are building a new relationship with our bodies, and in order to change it we have to start moving more towards that ratio. I know right now it seems like it is more like 0:50 but we have to start somewhere.

The last tip is to grab your journal and write down the top ten things that you like about yourself. These can be the same things that you put on your post it notes, but I want you to write them down again. It can be helpful to simply write down good things about ourselves. After you do this, I would like you to journal a bit about what it felt like to do that. Did you immediately negate every good thing? Did you criticize your choices and want to erase some of the good qualities you wrote? Just notice how you felt. Secondly, I would like you to find 3 people in your life who are supportive and loving and ask them for 3 things that they like about you. I know this will be weird to do, but just tell them that you are working on yourself, or tell them your therapist told you to do it. I am always fine with my clients blaming me:) Than take some time and journal about how it felt to have the compliments come from someone else. Did it make you angry? Did you feel embarrassed? Did you negate them in your head again? Just notice, and by doing that we know more about what we have to fight against in our body image battle. Because we all know it is a horribly hard fight, but if we keep at it we will win!! 

So keep working with me towards a healthy mind, and a healthy body!!  

This is a video topic that comes from questions and requests that I have received from one of my subscribers. She wanted to know about diet pills and laxatives and what they do to our bodies when we take them. I want to start by saying that this is not a scare tactic. It is not my goal to ever scare any of you into recovery. Recovery is a difficult process, and I know that staying in our ED’s is also difficult. What I wanted to accomplish with this video is to simply share information based on what I haver seen and treated, as well as what the research says about it. 

Diet pills are everywhere. If you go into any pharmacy or mega store like Target, you will see over fifteen different options. So how do they work, do they harm our bodies, and what are the potential side effects? Well many of them say that they “block fat” from being absorbed correctly. This is a great selling tactic, to tell people that they can eat whatever, but their body will not absorb any of the fat. Wow, right?!? But what they fail to mention is that when it is “blocking” the fat it is also blocking vitamin absorption. So even if we are eating, our bodies are not getting any of the vitamins that it needs. Also, many diet pills have high levels of caffeine, which can increase our heart rate and put added stress on our cardiovascular system. The reason caffeine scares me in diet pills is because it is often more than what you would find in a cup of coffee or a red bull even, it is an extreme amount of caffeine. 

Laxatives are something that many of us take when we cannot fully act out on our other ED behaviors in a timely manner, or our ED tells us that we did not do enough of the behavior to “negate” the food we ate. Like diet pills, laxatives are diuretics. That means that it purges our bodies of water. The reason that this is my biggest concern is because we are already throwing up and drinking soda or other caffeinated beverages so our bodies are very dehydrated. When we are dehydrated our bodies are low on potassium and our electrolytes are low and imbalanced. The biggest worry for me is that having these levels be low or imbalanced could cause a heart attack. That is the scariest thing for me and the reason that they say EDs are the most deadly mental disorder. So please be careful when abusing laxatives. Also, laxatives can damage much of your digestive system and eat away at the lining of our stomachs and intestines. That is why we often get such horrible stomach aches and cramping after we take them. They can also damage our colon and rectum. What this means is that it can slowly lose the ability to control our bowels or make our poop solid. I have had 3 clients who have had to have surgery to remove parts of their colons because of the damage done with laxatives. This meant that they had to either stay very close to the bathroom at all times or wear adult diapers. This is a humiliating and horrific side effect and I would hate to see anyone else have that happen. So read the labels, be careful, drink more fluids and maybe eat a banana or two. I know this is hard and it is not my goal to scare anyone, but I care too much to not tell you the truth. 

So help me spread the word! Let’s share this with more people on our Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or whatever. I am only one voice, but together we can really make a difference. Also, do not hesitate to comment below with your own experiences. If you have information that you think could help someone else, let us know!! And we will keep taking one step at a time to a Healthy Mind and a Healthy Body.

This week’s video comes from a question I received on YouTube. The question had to do with how the fear of abandonment feeds as well as how it is related to our EDs. The first thing I want to acknowledge is that many people who have an ED also have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). BPD is a disorder that is usually characterized by instability in interpersonal relationships, difficulty with self-image as well as impulsivity. After reading that you can probably see why many people with ED’s also have BPD. What I would like to talk about in this particular video is why we have such a fear of abandonment and how we can deal with this fear in a more constructive way.

There are often two ways that we act out due to our fear of abandonment. We will either emotionally black mail the person we are in a relationship with to force them to stay. Or we will leave them before they can leave us. When we emotionally black mail someone, it is almost like we are threatening them. We will say things like “if you leave I will kill myself,” or “I will start cutting again if you leave me,” etc. When they come running back to us, or say that they have changed their minds, we have blackmailed them into staying. This can be horrible for any relationship, because we know that they would have left and probably still want to, which can feed our fear even more. The second way we deal is by running from them first. This is usually in romantic relationships, but I have had many clients who have run away from friendships as well. We feel that we would rather know when the leaving will happen and so we push people away and move onto the next relationship. In general, we don’t really like being alone so it should be easy for you to notice if you tend to run away.

So what do we do about it? Well, the first thing I would like you to do is to make a list of the people who are important to you. I want you to write down why they are important and whether you fear they will leave you or not. Through this journaling you will be able play out your fears without acting on them. Think of this as a safe place to talk about this. The second thing I would like you to do is to keep in touch with those people in your life that are important to you. I know we tend to isolate and withdraw from them when we actually want their love and support. So reach out, keep talking about it and let me know how it goes. Let’s keep working towards a healthy mind and a healthy body.

Please watch and REBLOG my new video: Hunger for feelings (by KatiMorton) My goal is to see this video reflagged 100 times. Can you help?

This video is something that I wanted to create to get you thinking about what it is that you hunger for. I don’t mean hunger for food, but instead hunger for things in life. Hunger for love, affection, attention, etc. In order to even begin to think about what it is each of us hunger for, I want you to try and access that inner voice that I have talked about in my past video. Sometimes this can be a childhood memory or simply a very nice memory that we return to because of the great significance it has for us. Did you feel joyful? When was the last time you felt joy? Or maybe it was freedom you felt. Can you think of a time when you felt so free from all of the worry and anxiety? Try to remember a time in your life when you felt one of these things, because this can help unearth what it is that we crave and hunger for. If neither of those thoughts work, maybe it is love that you crave. Have you ever felt pure love from someone and given it to them in return? This does not have to be romantic love, but this can be a close friend or family member who helped us through a hard time. 

When we begin to dig through these memories and think about what it is we crave we can start to find out why we have an eating disorder in the first place. An eating disorder does not come out of nowhere! It was created to protect us from unhappy times and unwanted emotion. It helps us focus our time and energy onto something else. But it’s reason for being is no longer here and we will have to dig through these emotions as search for recovery. 

Take some time, jot down the things that you feel hunger or yearn for. Be patient with yourself, I know that your ED will tell you how shameful each and everyone of those needs is, but IT IS NOT!! We are all human, we all have needs and things that we hunger for. Let’s start talking about this and begin to peel back what it is that we have been hiding from for all this time.

Looks like last week’s video didn’t post on Tumblr… So today, you will get 2 videos! Lucky you! Have a great day and don’t forget to leave me messages. I am always here to answer any questions you may have! 

- Kati

Thank you!!!